In the two years that followed Marcellous Lewis’s 15th birthday, the Oakland native raped two women and killed a man over a dog, a prosecutor said Monday in closing arguments of a murder and double-rape trial.

Now 20, Lewis should be punished for the crimes that Deputy District Attorney Tim Wellman said he has proved beyond a reasonable doubt during a two-week trial.

“Over the period of less than two years, the defendant raped two women and killed a man,” Wellman said. “Not willing to take no for an answer, the defendant (committed these crimes).”

Wellman urged a jury not to be swayed by excuses given by the defense for each of the three violent crimes. He asked the jury to simply review the evidence that showed the attacks on the women were not consensual and the killing of Robert Tibbs, 41, was first-degree murder committed by Lewis as he tried to steal the dog from Tibbs’ apartment in East Oakland.

Tibbs was killed by a single bullet fired into his chest after he and Lewis had an argument over the ownership of a pit bull that once belonged to Lewis’ friend.

Lewis’ friend had given the pit bull, originally named “Killer,” to Tibbs and his fiancee shortly before Lewis’ friend was killed in East Oakland. In the year the couple owned the dog, which they renamed “Cinnamon,” Lewis never contested the ownership nor did he say he wanted to take care of it, Wellman said.

But on the night of May 21, 2008, Lewis went to Tibbs’ apartment, knocked on the front door and demanded Tibbs hand over the dog, evidence in the case revealed.

Tibbs refused and after a brief argument, Lewis walked up to a front window, pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and shot twice into the apartment, hitting Tibbs in the chest.

Tibbs identified Lewis as his killer during a chilling recorded 911 call that was played for the jury. Lewis’ girlfriend at the time also said that she heard Lewis get into a fight with Tibbs and tried to remove her boyfriend from the scene before he pulled out a gun and shot into the apartment.

Lewis was arrested several hours after the shooting when he arrived at Highland Hospital for treatment to cuts on his hand, which police believe he received from the broken window at Tibbs’ apartment.

As part of the arrest, police ran Lewis’ DNA through a computer that seeks DNA matches to unsolved cases and came up with a match for a 2007 alleged rape. With that match made, police then reopened a 2007 alleged rape in which a 16-year-old girl said Lewis raped her after a mutual meeting in front of a church.

Wellman said there is no doubt that Lewis had sex with both women because his semen was recovered from their bodies. And, he said, both women’s testimony, in which they told the jury Lewis forced them to have sex, should be trusted.

Defense attorney Joanne Kingston, however, said that Lewis should be found not guilty of all crimes because the killing occurred during “mutual combat” and the sexual encounters with the women were consensual.

Kingston urged the jury not to be overwhelmed by the district attorney’s decision to charge all the crimes together.

“It’s really hard when the prosecution gets up and says over these two years Marcellous Lewis committed all these heinous crimes,” Kingston said. “I ask you to keep your minds open.”

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